Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-12-03

added Joey ruefully.
ats Halloween night, Frcd!" cried
a warning chorus.
IL know it," answered Fred. ''Im
not afraid. I'll bring the three ivy
leaves if | have to give my head for
them"
And he pulled on his rough cap and
started of.
at was Il mean trick in Hal" he
said to himself, rs the nipping wind
caught him on the threshold. "Hc did
it for spite, | know. He thought I'd
back out. But I'm not afraid. |
don't believe in ghosts, even if it is
Halloween"
Yet. fearless as he indeed was. Fred
was still conscious that his task was
anything but a pleasant one.
The night was dark, the sky OBJ
scurcd by heavy clouds, that, parting
now and then, would show a yelled
moon cleaning behind with a pale,
sepuchral light. The wind seemed
witch-riddcn, so sudden were its gusts
and whirls. Even familiar objects
trees, the barns, the haystacks-took
strange, shadowy outlines in the chang
ing and uncertain light.
Leyel-hcaded fellow as Fred was, ne
could not help feeling the weird in
tluencc of the scene and the hour. All
the strange stories he had ever heard
of this mystic night began 10 float
through his mind.
He remembered how, in the happy
long ago, when he had parents and
home, he used To sit before the nursery
fine. , nd licta, with IA. n,rny ,pI on.D
to old Norah's wonderful legends of
Holy Eve in the could counthry'-
how fairies danced, and graves opened,
and 'thim walked on airth who were
miles beneath the say"
Beneath the sea! That was always
n sad and SOLDERING thought for poor
Fred, for it was only three years ago
that his own dear father had found Il
sailors grave in the great Pacific,
where he and all on board his gallant
ship had gone down.
And Fred, who had been his idol
and pride, had come to Cousin Rays,
to wear cast-off jackets instead OF the
trim sailor-suits which the captain so
proudly bought his boy, and take the
hard crusts Of life instead of lis plums,
and be
Fred's thoughts had grown so
gloomy that he had to quicken his
steps TO shake them off, for now the
shadow of the church-yard frs were
falling on his path, and the old church.
clock was striking twelve, and the
moon, peering through a rift of clouds,
had the white, cold look of II dead
face.
I'D just like Hal to try this forfeit
himself" said Fred, grimly. as he
| sprang across the low church-yard
wall-for the ivy-leaves grew on the
further side.
He had To cut across where the
graves were thickest, and the white
stones cleaned like sheeted forms in
the waning light.
His way lay past his own family lot,
where the young mother who had died
when he was little more than Il baby,
lay under the beautiful monument his
father had erected to her memory, and
on whose reverse side some kind friend
had caused to be inscribed:
sacred also to the Memory Of
captain FREDERICK CHARLES WHITE,
Lost at Sea
sin the Year 1883.
"A Brave Seaman, Loving Father and
Faithful Friend"
This grave was all that Fred had.
He took a loyal pride in keeping the
marble spotlcss, the mound green.
Every Sunday during the spring and
summer he placed n wreath of fresh
flowers there, and only yesterday he
had laid the years last Offering on the
fading grass-a cross of bright au-
tumn berries.
But a graveyard in the Sabbath sun
light is one thing. At twelve o'clock
on a wintry Halloween it is altogether
another.
Fred was conscious Of a queer,
| creepy feeling, that winged his foot
steps, and he was dying past the ia
miliar spot, when, almost inyoluntar-
ily, he glanced up, and for one awful
moment every drop of his blood seemed
to turf into ice-for there, standing
over his mothers grave, with the wan
moonlight falling upon his barred head,
was Il form the boy recognized at II
glance.
1t was he who for yeGrS had lain
fathoms deep, as every che believed,
beneath the far Pacilic's wave
With a wild Shrek, Fred fell sense
less before his fathers ghost.
And here, no doubt, II propcrly-con-
structcd Halloween story should end;
but | fancy n score of sensible young
readers asking;
And was it n ghost IRE enough?"
And though it does spoil my climax,
most frankly answer:
mo, it wasn't; not a bit of it!'
No ghost ever clasped a frightened
boy in such strong arms, held him
close to such q ~fast-bcating heart,
kissed him with such warm. firm lips.
No ghost ever had the clear. CHEEKY
voice that greeted Fred's returning
consciousness.
Have they made n coward of you,
my boy? What set you keeling over
like that?'
And last, but not least, no ghost in
the widest of Halloween legends. ever
revisited the ''glimpscs of the moon
with pockets containing bank-notes
enough to keep a regiment of Fred 5
in Jackets of the latest cut for a decade
Of years.
1t would he impossible to describe
the sensation that Fred created when
he rcappcarcd ut the Ray farmhouse
"A little shaken and unsteady, still